


Nothing Else Matters

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon divergence - No demon deal, Curtain Fic, First Time, M/M, POV Sam Winchester, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2759189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Saint Samuel, called The Confessor, for although he endured great torture for his faith, he was not a martyr.'</p><p><i>Of course he wasn't. Couldn't just die in peace for the things you love, that'd be too easy.</i> Sam reads another five pages, swallows again, forces his jaw to relax, and dares himself to look up at his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Else Matters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stardust_made](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/gifts).



> In trying to describe what this is, I keep coming back to the words first spoken by my partner-in-crime: _This story takes place in a world where the forces of Heaven and Hell left them alone._
> 
> There is more (so so so much more!) to come in this 'verse. stardust_made and I have spent months writing a series that diverges from canon at the end of season two: Sam doesn't die and so Dean doesn't make his deal. Consider this one possible version of events.

Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don't just say  
And nothing else matters

_Nothing Else Matters — Metallica_

 

**Confess**

"Hey Sammy—"

" _Sam._ "

"—check it out."

Dean spins the heavy book around, finger tapping at an illuminated heading, raising dust and making Sam wince, reach out and rescue the book from his brother's careless hands.

"Think this means you gotta tell me all your secrets, dude."

Sam arches an eyebrow. "That's not what it means."

Dean grins. "Sure it is. Come on, Sammy. Confess."

Sam shakes his head and draws the book closer, reads: ' _Saint Samuel The Confessor. Samuel was pure from his youth, like Samuel the prophet, and he was always harboring thoughts in his heart about the monastic life.'_ Sam looks up from the book and glares at his brother, who only spreads his hands and shrugs.

"Whatcha gonna do, kiddo? It's your destiny. Spill all your secrets and die a virgin."

Sam flips him the bird and Dean laughs, reaching for his almost-empty soda and sucking on the straw, noisy and gross. Not that Sam notices or pays any attention. He's reading, thanks.

_'…holy relics housed at the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Samuel the Confessor.'_

He hates when he has to do religious research with Dean sitting right beside him. Hates the guilt of seeing his mother's name on every page and the sting of Dean making a joke of everything.

The old anger comes on strong. The slow, cold burn of it so familiar in the pit of his stomach and so much more welcome than the niggling annoyance of _Dean Dean Dean right there, Dean_ scratching at his heart, _forever and always, amen_. He startles when Dean knocks their knees together under the table, retaliates by stepping on his foot. So Dean hooks his ankle, traps Sam's foot between both of his own.

Sam tries to glare at Dean but the minute he lays eyes on his brother he _feels_ it come out wrong. All wrong.

Sam's heart is like a jackhammer in his chest when Dean pulls away. Breaks contact like Sam has just shocked him. Like Sam's lightning and Dean's a metal key tied to a kite and somehow everybody is surprised by this outcome. Dean's staring at him, watching him so close and intense it makes every muscle in Sam's body contract. Sam breaks away from his brother's gaze and stares down at the book, his eyes hot and too dry.

_'Saint Samuel, called The Confessor, for although he endured great torture for his faith, he was not a martyr.'_

_Of course he wasn't._ Sam swallows painfully and turns the page. _Couldn't just die in peace for the things you love, that'd be too easy._ Sam reads another five pages, swallows again, forces his jaw to relax, and dares himself to look up at his brother.

Dean, predictably, has moved on. Is already leafing through the next book, greasy fingers smudging the pages while he hums Metallica under his breath.

 

**Atone**

Dean rolls them, hooking one leg around the back of Sam's and holding him down. There's not a drop of alcohol in either of them but they're giddy, Sam caught up with the giggles like a teenager and Dean's chest heaving, his face cracked wide open and his eyes shining. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy," he's nosing along Sam's jaw, kissing him in time with the little rocks of his hips. Sam's laughter turns to a string of breathless gasps and half-voiced sounds, his brother's name plain in the silent shape of his lips when there's nothing left to say.

"Sammy." Again, always, _forever and ever amen_.

"It, it's Sam." Sam, Sammy, laughs. Laughs and laughs and wants to cry, to die right now, wants to come so bad he's struggling against Dean where his brother's got his wrists pinned to the mattress above his head. It's an old joke, an old story, and he loves it. Loves it like he loves his brother. "Not Sammy, dude. _Sam._ "

"Oh, yeah," Dean's voice rumbles through him crown to toe, top-full. There is not one single point where they are not touching. Sam is enveloped. Sammy is in heaven. "Oh, yeah," Dean says. "I always get those two mixed up."

"Oh. Oh— _Jesus_."

"It's _Dean_ ," Dean echoes, and Sam laughs again, wild, and arches up against Dean as he tightens one hand around both of Sam's wrists and brings his other down, slowly-slowly-so-fucking-slowly, trailing along Sam's arm and ribs and down, further down, calloused fingers rough and perfect against the seam of his hip. "I know it's easy to get confused, but try to keep up with the class, college boy."

"Oh," Sam groans. "Fuck you."

"Nah," Dean shakes his head, bracing himself on one elbow, rising up just enough to look down at Sam through the gloom. "Think I'll fuck you. That…is that, Sammy, is that okay?"

 _Sammy._ "God—"

" _Dean_ ," Dean reminds him.

"I hate you."

"You don't."

"No," Sam says. "I really don't." And God help him, but in the low light filtering in through the grimy window, Dean has a halo glowing around his head, the golden strands of his hair flaring and refracting as Sam's vision blurs and the kind of overwhelming love and lust he's pretty sure is only supposed to exist in ancient epic ballads wells up in him, shorting out his better sense and his vision both, and it's maybe the five hundredth time it's happened but he's not in any hurry to get used to it. _Because Jesus Christ my brother is better than anything._

"Better than _anything_?" Dean asks, looking up from where he was making pretty good progress sucking a bruise into the skin below Sam's collarbone.

Sam punches him weakly in the shoulder. "You're a dick."

"I'm a saint."

"No you're not. There is no 'Saint Dean'," Sam says, struggling here, trying to regain a little equilibrium. Little brother always has to have something to say, it's the rules. "That'd be like having a saint named 'Bill'. Dumb name for a —ah, for a…."

Sam loses time, resurfaces eventually. "Anyway, you're not a saint."

Dean hums, kissing his way up Sam's shoulder to his neck to his ear. "Forgive me, brother. I have sinned."

"Dude." Sam tries, completely ineffectually, to pull away. Because he is definitely not shivering at the sound of Dean's voice, his stupid teasing voice all low and husky and…fuck…sinful. Fuck him.

Dean's teasing, definitely teasing, moving all slow and easy and torturous and looking at him is like staring at the sun. And that's definitely his teasing voice, when he says, "I'm trying to tell you something, dumbass." Definitely. Unless it's not.

Sam runs his dry tongue over his dry lips. "Kay." Dean shifts, then, and Sam pushes against him, finds himself in the way he fits against Dean, and maybe he makes a stupid, needy sound when Dean lets him, when Dean grinds down against him. "Come on, Dean."

"Bossy little fucker," Dean mutters, fumbling in the drawer of the nightstand.

Dean's voice breaks into a thousand jagged pieces as he loses himself inside Sam, nonsense sounds like _Nothing else matters_ and Sam thinks he'll wonder forever what Dean was trying to tell him.

 

**Redeem**

"Dean," Sam calls softly, after the front door has shut and Dean's boots hit the doormat. Sam likes it how Dean takes off his shoes as soon as he gets in the house, now. Doesn't even think about it. The same way he's not sure Dean even knows where Sam stores the duffel bags. Sam likes it.

"Dean."

His brother's head, the barest hints of gray at his temples and two weeks past due for a haircut, comes into view around the corner. He looks down to where Sam's sitting cross-legged on the floor and lifts his eyebrows. "Gotta take a leak, Sammy, s'important?"

Sam bites the inside of his cheek and shakes his head. Dean disappears upstairs and after the toilet flushes the shower turns on. He comes back down fifteen minutes later still toweling his hair, steam rising off his skin, the smell of engine grease only a little diluted.

"What's up?"

The dog rouses at his voice, chin lifting off Sam's knee, and pads over to Dean with her tongue lolling out. Dean makes his usual grand show of ignoring such a blatant show of affection, muttering things like _Just took a shower_ and _Just washed this shirt_ and _Fresh slobber on my jeans, awesome_ , and Sam's not even a little bit jealous of how their dog loves Dean more than him because watching Dean card his fingers unselfconsciously through shaggy fur is the second best thing ever.

The first best thing is how Dean leans across the coffee table to kiss him not even a half second after Sam thinks, _Hey I didn't get a kiss yet today_.

"So what's going on, anyway? Got a case?"

Sam looks around at the books and papers spread over every surface in their living room and shakes his head. "No. Just. You recognize these?" Dean lifts an eyebrow and Sam twitches his lips, gives a small, sad smile. "These are Bobby's books. I finally met up with Jody today and she brought them over."

Dean blinks, looks away, a muscle in his jaw tensing and releasing. The dog lets out a low whine.

Sam shifts closer, hooks a finger through the string holding the amulet he gave Dean years ago, tugs once. "Found some stuff. You wanna see?"

Sam shows him everything, talking the whole time, not making Dean answer. Losing Bobby had hit them hard. Dean was taking it worse and it reminded Sam of when they'd lost Dad. Sam had been such a kid, then. Hadn't known how to take it himself, didn't know what he was feeling and hadn't begun to understand what Dean was going through or how to give him what he needed. So now he just talks, thinking out loud, remembering and sharing with Dean. Books they'd looked through a hundred times while trying to track Yellow Eyes. Books that Sam remembers reading for the first time while crashing at Bobby's — _Narnia_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ and _A Wind in the Door_. Books he'd borrowed over long summer months of tracking demons and poltergeists; the books he used to teach himself Latin and Sumerian, his childish handwriting preserved in the margins.

And a book with beautiful, painstaking illuminations. A manuscript, really, and Sam thinks the pages are probably vellum. Dean's breath catches as he leafs through it, like he's looking for something. Sam lets him. Abandons the pages to smooth his palm up and down Dean's spine.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean asks, restless fingers tip-tap-tapping against the ancient page, and Sam glances down to read: _'Saint Samuel, called The Confessor, for although he endured great torture for his faith, he was not a martyr.'_

"Yeah?" Sam watches Dean, watches the lines around his eyes deepening, wonders what he's seeing.

Dean flattens out his hand, drags all five fingers down the page, and then he closes the book. "I'm hungry."

Sam rolls his eyes and pushes himself up, reaching down to haul Dean to his feet. "Dean Winchester is hungry. And, get this, the sky is blue."

"And water is wet, and demons lie, and I'm an awesome big brother."

Dean's hand comes to rest in its place over Sam's heart, firm and steady, so Sam says, "And you like me, a little bit."

"I do." Dean looks at him, all shining eyes and parted lips, and takes in a deep breath. "Sammy, I really do."

Sam looks down, back up, catches Dean's eye and feels his whole self start to shine like he's got a Christmas tree lit up inside him. "Good," he says. _Good_. A ridiculous thing to say. "That's good." But it is good. It is. Because honestly, nothing else matters. _You like me, I like you. Forever and ever, amen._


End file.
